Mallory and I locked eyes as she was led from the room, unsure of what to think about each other anymore. Our new shared fate was bound to profoundly change our relationship—but not even the True North Society seemed to know what the final outcome might be.
Janice didn’t give me any further directions, so I sat in one of the control station chairs, making sure not to touch the glass keyboard or any of the expensive-looking computer equipment, which was sleeker and more elegant than anything I’d seen before.
The sliding door opened a few minutes later and Matthew and an older man I’d never seen before entered the room. I jumped up and held my breath for a moment, at first thinking Matthew had brought my father, but it quickly became apparent that the man looked nothing like the few pictures I had of my father, even having aged twenty years.
“So, I guess this is it,” Matthew said. “What you’ve truly been waiting for. Just remember to manage your expectations. However you’re expecting this reunion to go, it won’t.”
“I understand,” I said. “I just need to see him—put all the wondering to rest. I’m not expecting some sappy Hallmark reunion.”
The other man took a seat at the control station and began efficiently tapping away at the glass keyboard. “The chamber will be powered up momentarily,” he said, without looking up from his work.
Matthew seemed to be keeping his distance as we waited for the chamber portal to be ready for us. He still looked distraught, which had concerned me earlier. I couldn’t take my eyes off him as he stared at the far wall, at its many screens displaying random numbers for which I had no context. Soon after, he shook his head to escape his reverie and brought his attention back to me.
“I’ve got your purse stowed away,” he said softly. “It’s better to keep your stuff here.”
“Okay,” I said, wandering closer to him. “I assume you know I’ll be visiting your psychiatric hospital.”
“I’m aware, and fought to keep you out of there, but ultimately, the Assembly has the final say. I’m sorry I couldn’t do more. I’m doing everything I can to protect you.”
“It’s okay, really. I trust you more than anyone else here.”
“Which probably isn’t saying much,” Matthew said and finally cracked a smile.
I shrugged shyly but returned the smile. His smile had a way of making me melt, even in a situation as tense and anxious as this. A small dimple formed on his left cheek, but not his right. It was subtle, but one more beautiful characteristic that caught my eye.
“The chamber’s ready when you are,” the technician said, bringing us back to the real reason we were here.
“After you,” Matthew said, extending a hand like a servant to royalty.
The cylindrical chamber was now alive with random lights and a low hum. Inside, the air was thick and electric, like we could be struck by lightning at any second.
Matthew closed the chamber door and took his position right beside me, the area inside just big enough for the two of us. My hand hung limp at my side, but as he inched closer, our hands brushed each other, creating a static shock.
“Ouch,” I whined.
“Sparks are flying,” Matthew said, straight faced as he repositioned himself to look at me.
I was about to laugh, but his hungry look forced me to bite my lower lip instead.
“Don’t do that,” he said. “It’s… it’s too much…”
“What? Bite my lip?”
A soft growl rumbled in the back of his throat. “Yes.” His eyes refused to release me.
We were so close, I could feel his breath on my face—so close, I was almost afraid of receiving another shock. But even though he remained directly in front of me, he began to fade as the entire chamber filled with a white fog, starting at the floor, and rising to completely submerge us. The humming of the chamber grew louder and louder until every other sound was drowned out. Within seconds, I couldn’t see anything around me or hear anything besides the roaring chamber.
As quickly as the chamber’s activity had consumed us, it all dissipated, and Matthew was standing before me once again. Without saying a word, he slid open the door and we were now in the control room I remembered from the space station, much larger than the one we’d left, with twelve chambers lining the walls. All the oversized screens on the back wall were dark there.
“Where are we?” I asked, scanning the room and finally seeing Sector 7 in large yellow letters.
“Nevada,” Matthew said.
“I didn’t think this kind of technology existed.”
“It’s exclusive to us. You should remember, we’ve been dissecting and recreating superior technology for the better half of a century. We had what you’d consider modern computers in an age when the most advanced devices took up entire rooms and could only perform rudimentary math equations.”
“I guess it still hasn’t sunk in that your professors were from the future,” I said as we left the control room and navigated through the station.
It felt so much like when I’d walked through the space station with the president of the True North Society, except this time, instead of everything looking dingy and worn, it all appeared shiny and new. And when I passed by windows, instead of seeing brilliant stars and far-off planets, I now saw the inside of what looked like a gigantic airplane hangar.
“You said my father was involved with building this?” I asked as we continued down never-ending hallways.
“Yes; he was the chief designer, learning as much as he could about the station in space and bringing that knowledge home to build this one.”
We passed a small number of people working on various aspects of the station, but for the most part, everything was quiet. There wasn’t a lot of activity, like back at the headquarters building during the night.
After a long trek, we reached an open hatch and took a manlift elevator to get to the ground. As we crossed the remainder of the hangar, I glanced back at the massive station that might have been a mile long for all I knew. The station was suspended from the ground by scaffolding underneath and thick cables from above, looking like an intricate spiderweb of support.
“It’s so huge,” I gasped, in complete awe.
“This is only Sector 7,” Matthew replied.
At the edge of the hangar was a bank of elevators, which we took—heading upward. Then we exited a small stand-alone building housing nothing more than the elevators. The night air was noticeably warmer than it was back home as we made our way across dirt terrain to reach a campus of rectangular buildings.
I felt like we were getting close, and with each new step, my anxiety grew exponentially. By the time we entered one of the buildings, I could hardly breathe—and on reaching the third floor, I couldn’t calm the tremors attacking my entire body. Matthew hadn’t taken me to some gravesite in the desert; we were approaching a room, which further confirmed that my father was alive, and I’d be speaking to him within moments.
And before I knew it, Matthew stopped at a closed door halfway down the hallway and removed his keycard. “Do you need a moment before I open the door?” he asked.
I couldn’t believe the time had actually arrived. I had rehearsed in my head a million times what I’d say to him when we finally met, but now couldn’t think of a single thing. My mind went completely blank as my body continued to shake. As much as I thought I’d been preparing all these years, it had all amounted to nothing. I wasn’t prepared for this at all; I’d never be prepared for this. But I couldn’t simply hide in the hallway either.
I shook my head since I was unable to form the words to speak.
Matthew pressed his key against the card reader, which flashed a green light, and a mechanism in the door clicked to signal it had unlocked.
I shouldn’t have been surprised that the light was off when Matthew opened the door, though there was a nightlight providing the room with a ghostly orange glow. Matthew moved to turn on the overhead light, then thought better of it, and proceeded
to light a nightstand lamp.
The room was sparsely furnished, the bed taking up a majority of the space. And there was my father, asleep beneath the covers, his back to the door.
Matthew stepped back to stand by the door while I ventured deeper into the room. Around the far side of the bed, a cushioned rocker was positioned close to the wall. I was afraid I was going to see something horrible as I rounded the bed to get a glimpse of my father’s face. However, what I saw wasn’t horrible, but familiar. I recalled the few pictures I had of him and recognized him immediately, though the features on his face were thinner, with deep lines and nearly white hair—but it was definitely him. But he looked more than twenty years older. He didn’t look middle-aged at all, as should have been the case, but like he’d been transformed into an old man.
I slowly sank into the rocker just as he began to stir. Feeling a presence or noticing the light, my father blinked his eyes a few times before fully opening them. Even in the dim light, I could see his blue eyes matched mine, both an amazing and irritating realization. When our eyes locked on one another, I didn’t know what to do. I felt like a spotlight was on me and I was expected to do or say something profound, but was suddenly dumbfounded. I couldn’t breathe. My hands tightened into fists. I could see the growing recognition in his eyes as we gazed upon each other for the first time—and, as far as I knew, the first time ever.
“Look at how much you’ve grown,” he said hoarsely, reaching forward and grabbing a pair of silver-rimmed glasses from the nightstand. “It’s always a wonder how quickly time passes.”
“You know who I am?” I asked.
He sat up and found the right positioning for the glasses on his nose. “Oh yes, I’d know that beautiful face anywhere, my dear child—Abigail.”
My heart sank at the mention of the unfamiliar name. “My name is Fiona,” I said. “I’m your daughter.”
“No,” he said, shaking his head. “I—I distinctly remember. I was going to take you to the moon. There’s a station there. We were going to start a new life away from all these monsters. They look just like us. You don’t know until you open them up. We were going to fly there until… you died. Then I couldn’t bring myself to go alone. It had been your dream.”
“I’m not dead; I’m right here,” I said.
“Am I dead? Have you come to bring me home?” He glanced around the room and settled his gaze on Matthew. “You’re dead… I must be dead too.”
“What’s going on?” I asked, the shaking in my hands finally subsiding. “What’s wrong with him?”
“To get as much information from the future station as possible, Roland literally spent years away from his own time,” Matthew explained.
“I memorized everything!” my father exclaimed. “You can’t take notes through the portal. They’re wiped clean on the other side. Father time is a sneaky bastard.”
“Written information is not the only thing that gets wiped or affected in passing through the portal. All electronic equipment is rendered useless.”
“I never took off my watch. Look,” he said and showed me his left wrist, and upon it a child’s watch with a dinosaur on the face. “It hasn’t worked for thirty years.”
“He’s gone through several watches over the years,” Matthew said. “The biggest risk of time travel is spending too much time in an alternate timeline. The mind is slowly wiped as well.”
“My mind is in perfect condition,” my father protested. “I will be back to work in the morning. And I have an Assembly meeting in the afternoon. A full schedule. Kelly needs to type up my notes and have them to me by 7 a.m. So much to do; it’s a wonder I can keep it all straight.”
“Do you remember Susan?” I asked, trying to bring his attention back to me. It was almost as if he’d already forgotten I was here.
“Susan? Of course, I remember Susan,” he said, a smile spreading across his withered face. “She used to serve me at The Angry Goat. Such a beautiful young woman. She was probably not much older than you are now. I wonder whatever happened to her.”
I had no idea what he was talking about. “Susan was a woman you dated. You got her pregnant before you disappeared. She had two girls—Fiona and Rebecca. Does any of this ring a bell?”
“It sounds familiar—like I read it in a book some years ago.”
“No; it wasn’t some story you read. It’s real. Susan is my mother—and Becca’s mother, before she died.”
“You’re dead,” he said again. “I was so stricken with grief. Your mother’s name was not Susan. It was… umm… Gillian. Yes; I remember now. I have a picture. It’s right here. I’ll show you.” He opened the top drawer of the nightstand and pulled out a small picture frame. “Yes; there we are. This was such a beautiful day. We went to get ice cream. I remember it like it was yesterday.”
He handed me the frame so I could recall what he thought I should remember… then I remembered the picture of the girl from his office. “This is Abigail?” I gazed upon the picture of the young girl, my father, and a woman—Gillian—whom I’d also seen before. I’d been to her house—on—on the day of my accident.
“Yes,” he said. “Little Abby and your mother, Gillian. You died and Gillian moved away, leaving me all alone. But you’ve come back. You’ve come back.” My father carefully stood and opened his arms. “I’ve missed you so much, Abby my dear. I love you so much.”
Tears were beginning to sting my eyes as I gazed up at him, unsure of what to do. A part of me had yearned to hear those words my whole life. But I’d also spent many long and frustrating years furious with him for leaving—for disappearing. And here he was, confused and hurting, with no idea who I really was.
He took the picture frame from my hand and placed it down on the nightstand, then held his arms out again. “I don’t know why you’re here now, but I’m ready. I’m ready to go with you. Simply lead the way into the light.”
I finally gave in, stood up, and folded into his outstretched arms. By the time he wrapped his skinny arms around me, the tears were falling in full force.
“You can’t go with her tonight,” Matthew said from the other side of the room. “Remember how much work you have to do tomorrow? The station needs you. The Assembly needs you.”
“Of course. How could I forget?” My father kissed my forehead, then let me go. “I wish it was my time so I could go with you, but it’s not. I still have much to do here. Everyone’s counting on me.”
“I understand,” I said, sniffling and wiping my wet cheeks. “You have very important work to do.”
“The most important,” he reiterated. “But I’m sure we’ll be together soon.”
“Yes,” I said, unable to say anything more.
“We should let you get back to sleep,” Matthew said. “Big day tomorrow.”
“The biggest.” He got back into bed and pulled the covers up to his chin. “The biggest. Everyone’s counting on me.”
“And you won’t disappoint them,” I said, my voice cracking as I fought to get the words out.
40
Matthew
It was heartbreaking to see Fiona’s first interaction with her father. I wondered if I should have tried to prepare her for who she was going to meet, but the information given to her about the portal was too new. She still didn’t understand enough of what was going on to really have time to process it. So, in the end, I allowed her to go in there unencumbered and let the interaction unfold naturally. Maybe that was a mistake. I didn’t know.
Her cheeks were glossy as she rounded the bed and I turned off the nightstand light. I ushered her through the door and immediately found her in my arms as she wept with a careless abandon that she didn’t allow herself to reach inside the room. Her body trembled against mine and I held her tight to try and give the support she needed.
“I just don’t know what I’m supposed to feel,” she said between powerful sobs.
“You don’t have to force yourself to feel anything, just let it come
naturally,” I said, stroking her soft hair.
“I’m so angry and relieved and sad and confused… I thought I was prepared…”
“It’s understandable to be feeling all those conflicting emotions. And, in time, you’ll come to appreciate all of them.” I brushed her cheek with my thumb, wiping at the tears, then kissed the top of her head.
She craned her neck to look up at me, her eyes still large and glistening. My lips hovered inches from her forehead, and without thinking, they met her warm skin. I felt her hands tighten around my waist as she continued to gaze up expectantly at me. Then without saying a word, she lifted onto her toes and pressed her lips to mine.
My hands moved up the contours of her body, finally settling on the sides of her neck, my thumbs gently massaging her jawline. Her lips were so soft and sweet, so intoxicating, that I only wanted more. More of her touch. More of her flavor. More of her…
By the time our lips parted, I could barely breathe. My heart was hammering away in my chest, and I felt hers was too as we remained euphorically intertwined. I simply couldn’t let her go. My desire to protect her was too great—and I didn’t know how I was going to do that while she was locked away in Sisters of Mercy. The thought of her in there could very well drive me mad.
“I’m sorry,” she said after a breathless moment. “That probably wasn’t appropriate.”
“Don’t apologize” I said, my voice only slightly above a whisper. I was afraid of my feelings toward this new development, but didn’t want to sound dismissive.
She apprehensively backed away, breaking eye contact as her focus turned to her fidgeting hands. “Don’t hate me,” she finally said.
“I could never hate you.” I placed a finger under her chin and guided it upward, her sparkling blue eyes finding mine once again. And I couldn’t decide on a better way to show what I thought about her than to offer another kiss, so I took her face in my hands and consumed her lips with a hungry fervor. Within seconds, her mouth opened and her tongue found mine, quickly reaching a sweet and sensual rhythm.
Angeles Vampire Page 20
